Chobbit's 5 Rules to Improving Your Roleplay!

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Chobbit
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Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 5:18 pm
MC name: Chobbit

Chobbit's 5 Rules to Improving Your Roleplay!

Post: # 912Post Chobbit »

Hello everyone, today I will be expressing general rules you should follow to make your roleplaying more enjoyable! I will be using examples from this event.

Rule 1: Be Willing to Lose.
Let me repeat that: BE WILLING TO LOSE. This is a huge problem when it comes to pure role play. Players, by their very nature, don't want to lose. But what happens? They are no fun to play with.

Consider this good example:
Jay thrusts his riot shield at him
Shady Mark falls back from a hit from the shield.
Now, Mark could have replied: "Shady Mark dodges the thrust, and swings his wrench at Jay". What's the problem with that? It would end up in a circular, boring, chain of events. "Jay dodges the wrench, and kicks at his legs." "Shady Mark jumps over the kick, and delivers his own kick to the head." "Jay blocks the kick with his shield, and reaches for the foot."...

This would just continue indefinitely. And there's no excitement there. Both sides know that the other side will just dodge, or win against anything thrown. There's no drama.

But with the proper application of being willing to lose:
Jay thrusts his riot shield at him
Shady Mark falls back from a hit from the shield.
Shady Mark reaches for his wrench again and leaps at Jay
Jay holds up the riot shield to hopefully block it.
Shady Mark clang clang
Shady Mark the wrench goes flying
Shady Mark: "er, Hey there sir, how can I help you?"
With this, we get an exciting fight. Jay left himself a little weak with the "hopefully block it" line, and Mark allowed himself to be taken. Now the role play can ascend to the next level where there is a verbal confrontation. This leads many openings, including what happened, or Mark could try to outwit Jay.

When you are willing to lose, it helps the other player be willing to give. Now both sides are giving and taking, and the drama undulates fantastically!

Let yourself lose, to truly win.


Rule 2: Don't Determine the Others' Action.
Let's move straight to the example:
Jay tries to put cuffs on Shady Mark
Shady Mark is cuffed
The key word in here is "tries". A huge gold star for Jay here. Consider the alternative:
Jay slaps cuffs on Shady Mark, and shoves him into the ground
If this happened, Mark would have no chance to retaliate. It would take control away from Mark, which would cause frustration. It would be breaking Rule 1. And worse, it would lead to escalation: "Shady Mark leans forward heavily, throwing Jay into the wall, knocking him unconscious."

Now let's look at that quote again:
Jay tries to put cuffs on Shady Mark
Shady Mark is cuffed
Jay only told what his character did, and left Mark to determine his own fate. In this case, Mark allowed himself to be captured (good use of Rule 1). Note, Mark could go ahead and make that fight seen as mentioned in the BAD example like so:
Jay tries to put cuffs on Shady Mark
Shady Mark moves forward soon as the cuffs are on and ducks down
Jay gets pulled off balance
Shady Mark lifts with his hip to try and throw Jay
Jay gets thrown into the wall
Jay is unconscious
Note how in this example, both players gave room for the other player to be awesome... Just like what really happened!


Rule 3: Forgive Mistakes.
Some times in the heat of role play, something gets missed. Either a detail gets missed, something happens that wouldn't happen (breaking physics, a hammer used to screw in a screw, etc), or consequences aren't thought out.

In our example post, Mark and Lucy mysteriously don't have handcuffs on them after they are thrown in the jail cell. Is that a problem? Sure. Should it stop the role play, or should everything be brought back to that point to redo? Absolutely NOT. If it get's noticed, bring it up... there's a couple different ways:

Role Play:
David Moore notices that Mark doesn't have cuffs on
after a quick thought
Shady Mark "Ah Hah! I used my wrench to bust them open!

Ooc:
David Moore: ((What happened to the cuffs?))

Or by ignoring it~

The bad thing to do would be to stop role play and redo sections, stop entirely, or worst yet, argue.

Let mistakes slide, and role play around them!


Rule 4: Let the Play Flow Naturally.
Sometimes you get an idea of where you want the play to go, but other players take it elsewhere. Let. It. Go. If you keep trying to force it, it's going grind everything to a halt.

Let's look at the example. In the role play, it seemed like the prison break was for a rescue. But, once the mafia got in the prison, Ceagle's reaction was one of not knowing them. Thus, play evolved naturally into The Boss trying to find out where Ceagle hid the money. Furthermore, Ceagle was insisting that he didn't steal the money. It could have been forced, or role play stopped, but Mark decided that the natural flow was for him to have stolen the money, setting up Ceagle.

When role play flows naturally like that, it tells a great story. In addition, letting it flow removes any unnatural kinks in the narrative.


Rule 5: Help Each Other Out.
Sometimes, you just don't have the ability to do what the role play suggest you do. If you read the text in the pictures of the event, you'll notice that Jay was unable to place Lucy and I in the cells, as there were no buttons.

This is a case where you can quickly hop out of character, get in the right position, and restart. Another example, if Mark needed to break into Lucy's cell, but didn't have permissions for the area, David Moore could have quickly let Mark out of his cell, and let him into Lucy's cell, and role play could have continued as if Mark broke through the adjacent bars.



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If you have any questions, or additional Role Play rules to follow, feel free to add in your voice!
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